DESPITE the fact that we’ve several strong contenders to the title, a dank day in November must easily rank as the very darkest day of Pakistani cricket. At the end of a 22-day trial that gripped the cricket community worldwide, Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif were both found guilty by a jury at Southwark Crown Court.
Mohammad Amir, who’d already pleaded guilty, joined his former teammates for sentencing, and to much international fanfare, Justice Cooke sentenced each of the terrible trio to varying prison terms. The public’s bloodlust would be temporarily subdued, as many revelled at the incarceration of those who had brought our beautiful sport into disrepute.
Cricket fans in Pakistan and cricket journalists in the western world have been celebrating the verdict. Emotions were running high, as an opportunity to set an example to the rest of cricket’s devious characters – of which, the trial has revealed, there are many – that there will be serious consequences for their actions.
It’s very easy to get caught up in the emotion and immediate sentiment of it all. We’ve done the right thing for the future of cricket. We’ve set an example to the youth. These prison sentences will serve as an adequate deterrent to future generations of cricketers. We’ve wiped the slate clean and given the game back its credibility.
But what of those who we’re sending to prison?
If one were to focus on the crime itself in isolation, does the act of purposely crossing a white line with your foot warrant mandatory companionship from rapists, murderers and west London gangsters?
Fraud is a crime that can be committed by similarly innocuous gestures: a simple pen-stroke from an accountant, a lie over the telephone. But within the British justice system, how often do these individuals see the inside of a prison cell? How often is it deemed more appropriate to punish ‘white-collar crimes’ with community service and probation, alongside being barred from their respective professions?
The last time anyone was sent to prison for a similar crime was more than 50 years ago and in that instance, the football players in question deliberately underperformed to lose the game. The actions of Asif/Butt/Amir didn’t make any difference to the end result of the match. In fact, Amir recorded figures so exceptional, that they still feature on the Lord’s Honours Board. The advent of online gambling has also inevitably led to an increased prevalence in match-fixing. A sportsbook casino is tremendously easy to access online.
The players in question were most certainly at fault and, as the evidence has proven, were guilty of the crimes the court prosecuted them for. These three cricketers, risked, and subsequently destroyed, their reputations and professional integrity. But prison? Does the punishment really fit the crime? Have they not already lost enough?
This does raise the question of sportsmen gambling; we are well aware that many players also use casino games on a regular basis. Lifetime bans are taken with a pinch of salt in cricket, particularly within the stream of incompetent administrations the troubled country of Pakistan has seen. But a true life ban, minus the cynicism, is, and should be, the ultimate punishment for a cricketer. To have your passion, your livelihood, your greatest talent in life taken away from you should be most painful part of the process. I can only imagine what it’s like to have dedicated your entire life to something. Day in, day out dedicating yourself to raise your standard and reach the pinnacle: representing your country. And then, just like that, having it all taken away. Isn’t that enough hurt? Isn’t a prison sentence simply overkill?
In his closing address, Salman Butt’s lawyer Ali Bajwa QC stated that Butt had lost everything. His reputation was in tatters, his credibility non-existence and he had become virtually unemployable. He had lost the thing he loved the most: cricket. In his final plea to the court, he begged the judge not to take his civil liberty away from him.
In my opinion, Justice Cooke needn’t have.
words by Aatif Nawaz, a writer and comedian based in London.
